1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tool for developing programs executed in a parallel, real time processor, and particularly to an object-oriented visual program development system for handling program entity, including pre-processing, function and post-processing sections for developing program sequences using graphical user interface (GUI) on an object-oriented basis, and to a method thereof.
2. Description of the Background Art
Here, the term "parallel, real time processing" refers to a process that handles a plurality of events in parallel to achieve one objective. A typical example of this is an automatic teller machine (ATM) of a financial institution that carries out deposits and withdrawals by performing in parallel such processes as communications with a host computer, reading of magnetic stripes on a card and a passbook, and printing in the passbook or on a receipt.
Although a common type ATM installed in a financial institution such as a bank reads either a cash card or a passbook, a new type of machine can read both of them in parallel. Although the former does not carry out parallel, real time processing, the latter does.
In developing application program sequences without requiring parallel, real time processings, a visual programming development environment has been conventionally provided using an object-oriented scheme that can be loaded into a personal computer or workstation. The visual programming development environment refers herein to an environment for developing program sequences using graphics such as a GUI (Graphical User Interface). As presently-available visual programming development environment, there are "Visual Basic" (trade name) and "Visual C++" (trade name) developed by Microsoft Corporation.
In developing programs for parallel, real time processors, however, it has been considered to be difficult to implement the visual programming development environment based on the object-oriented scheme because of difficulty of modeling the coordination between objects that execute the parallel processes. Here, an "object" in the object-oriented programming refers to a combination of a data item (such as variables, characters, numbers, and the like, which are also called property) with procedures (also called methods, a set of commands that can be executed on the object) associated with the data item.
Accordingly, in developing programs for parallel, real time processors, a conventional program development scheme has been generally employed in which manual coding using a programming language such as C language or PL/1 is required in its final stage. Thus, the coding using the existing programming language is common in developing application program sequences for the parallel, real time processors. This, however, does not always lead to high quality programs though it requires a large amount of effort and time.